More than 90 percent of the illegal immigrant youths apprehended by immigration officials and placed in the Department of Health and Human Services’ care last fiscal year have been resettled with relatives in the U.S.
According to an HHS report, provided to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and obtained by Breitbart News, in Fiscal Year 2014 immigration officials released 53,550 unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors to sponsors throughout the U.S.
Of those released to sponsors, 48,456 were placed with relatives — 31,966 placed with a parent or stepparent and 16,490 placed with another relative.
The remaining 5,000 were placed with non-relative sponsors or did not have data entered.
Last summer, HHS official Mark Greenberg testified before a Senate panel that the agency does not check the immigration status when releasing unaccompanied minors into the care of sponsors. Instead the agency prioritizes the “least restrictive setting in the child’s best interest.”
FY 2014 saw a massive influx of unaccompanied minors, largely from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, illegally entering the U.S. across the southwest border. In total Border Patrol apprehended 68,631 unaccompanied minors last fiscal year alone. The vast majority have remained in the U.S.
“It’s worth observing that while considerable resources where spent on this project, somehow the feds could not find a way to stop themselves from releasing 30,000 convicted criminal aliens in the same fiscal year,” an aide to Sessions noted, in reference to the more than 30,000 convicted criminal immigrants released last year.
The aide added that the illegal immigrant minors placed with sponsors throughout the U.S. represent just a portion of massive influx of illegal immigrants from Central America who remain in the U.S. following last year’s surge in illegal immigration.
“It is important to note that these figures are just for UAC’s and do not include the tens of thousands of family units who showed up at the border and were also released into the interior. The border surge, and attendant fiscal and economic impacts, are in addition to the record flow of immigration underway since 1970 due to historic numbers of green card issuances pushed for by large businesses,” the aide added.